A victory for women's health

The Obama administration recently announced that it will follow the Institute of Medicine’s recommendation that health insurance cover contraception and other preventive women’s health care services without co-pay or other out-of-pocket expense.

Beginning in 2013, new health plans will no longer require women to pay out-of-pocket costs for birth control, well-woman preventive visits, screening for cervical cancer, counseling for sexually transmitted infections, screening and counseling for interpersonal and domestic violence, breast-feeding support and supplies, and screening for gestational diabetes.

This is a historic victory for women’s health because it will increase access to preventive health care services for millions, thereby reducing unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are more than 19 million new cases of STIs each year in the U.S. About half of all sexually active people will get one by age 25. Nearly half of the pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended, one of the highest rates in the developed world.

Increasing access to reproductive health care will have an enormous social and economic impact, especially here in San Diego County.

Unintended pregnancies cost the federal and state governments an estimated $11 billion a year, according to a study published by the Brookings Institution.

One of the most effective ways to reduce the rate of unintended pregnancy is removing barriers to accessing contraception, like co-pays for birth control pills, which typically range between $15 and $50 per month. Other methods, such as intrauterine contraception, often cost hundreds, even with health insurance.

The recent decision will save public dollars and improve health outcomes for women across the United States much like the California Family Planning, Access, Care and Treatment (FPACT) Program has done in our state. This highly successful program provides 1.66 million women and men with contraceptive care, STI testing and treatment, and other preventive reproductive health services. According to the University of California San Francisco, FPACT averted 286,000 unintended pregnancies in one year, which saved the state nearly $4 billion.

The FPACT program is only available to Californians who do not have health insurance; however, insured women and men often do not earn enough to pay their co-payment for contraception and other preventive reproductive health care. There are organizations like Planned Parenthood that provide services regardless of insurance status or income, but making these reproductive health care services more widely available through health plans will increase access and therefore improve health outcomes.

There is broad public support for making contraception more accessible. According to one recent poll, 77 percent of Americans believe that private medical insurance should provide no-cost birth control and 74 percent believe that government-sponsored plans should do the same.

Contraception allows women to plan and space their pregnancies, thus improving maternal, infant, and family health. Birth control is also used to control and manage a wide range of health problems. Among other things, it can protect women against debilitating symptoms of endometriosis and reduce the risk of ovarian cancer.